Android Games Catch-All

Incidentally, I finished Dungeon Hunter - really don't bother.

I just ordered a Nexus One and before I start wading through the previous 4 pages I just wanted to ask are there any sites like toucharcade.com, appyspy.com, or appshopper.com for Apple stuff? Those places provide reviews, news, and updates on pricing. I find them invaluable for finding good stuff. So I have my fingers crossed that sites exist for Android stuff.

farley3k wrote:

I just ordered a Nexus One and before I start wading through the previous 4 pages I just wanted to ask are there any sites like toucharcade.com, appyspy.com, or appshopper.com for Apple stuff? Those places provide reviews, news, and updates on pricing. I find them invaluable for finding good stuff. So I have my fingers crossed that sites exist for Android stuff.

There are a few, I like Android Tapp personally.

Speaking of which, I saw this game on their site and I want it.

I just got Raging Thunder. It is a solid racing game. I've enjoyed it so far but I think the steering is a little touchy with the accelerometer.

Glu has started updating their games to be installed mostly to the SD card. World Series of Poker went from over 20 meg down to 1.18 meg. Very happy with that. I also found the setting in Dolphin Browser HD to store temp files on the SD card. I've got over 30 meg of free space now (to install more games).

Unknown Soldier wrote:

Try Tower Raiders - it's a much better tower defense game than Robo Defense. The Gold version has more than paid for itself just while sitting on the toilet. Wish the guy would come out with some more bonus maps though, it's been quite a while since he updated.

I'll give it a shot. Love Robe Defense.

Question on emulators: If I where to load an Apple IIe emulator, would the roms I want to use, have to be made to work with Android also? I want Oregon trail, but the only incarnation I find is an updated version, that is buggy and no longer supported by the dev. I have a copy of the original rom that I have played in the past, and would like to use it with one of the Apple IIe emulators out there.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

Tetris and Bejeweled are on sale for $1.99.

http://www.appbrain.com/app/ca.jamda...

http://www.appbrain.com/app/ca.jamda...

Age of Conquest is a Risk-like game that is pretty fun. There are versions for different continents. I got the North American version. You can create towers, fortify your armies, and purchase armies. It is one of those games where your initial location is pretty important. There is a campaign mode and random play. The AI is, unfortunately, is of the you vs the world type. It's still fun, though.

Ah-hah, thank you! I will pass that on to my husband, who is considering purchasing a Droid or an Incredible. He's not much of a game player, but likes Bejeweled.

Katy wrote:
EvilHomer3k wrote:

Tetris and Bejeweled are on sale for $1.99.

http://www.appbrain.com/app/ca.jamda...

http://www.appbrain.com/app/ca.jamda...

Age of Conquest is a Risk-like game that is pretty fun. There are versions for different continents. I got the North American version. You can create towers, fortify your armies, and purchase armies. It is one of those games where your initial location is pretty important. There is a campaign mode and random play. The AI is, unfortunately, is of the you vs the world type. It's still fun, though.

Ah-hah, thank you! I will pass that on to my husband, who is considering purchasing a Droid or an Incredible. He's not much of a man, but likes Bejeweled.

Fixed..

Tigerbill wrote:

Question on emulators: If I where to load an Apple IIe emulator, would the roms I want to use, have to be made to work with Android also? I want Oregon trail, but the only incarnation I find is an updated version, that is buggy and no longer supported by the dev. I have a copy of the original rom that I have played in the past, and would like to use it with one of the Apple IIe emulators out there.

Emulators usually just load disc or memory images from the original hardware so from the software's perspective the hardware the emulator is running on is irrelevant (which is kind of the point of an emulator in the first place).

EvilHomer3k wrote:

I just got Raging Thunder.

Yeah I picked up Raging Thunder II a little while ago, it's quite fun, the accelerometer controls are indeed a touch twitchy.

DanB wrote:

Gem Miner:Dig Deeper: Genuinely awful and utterly boring resource management/exploration game. I really can't believe I bothered to complete a play through.

I came here to gush about this game, but I decided to first search to see if anyone's played this already. Looks like you've already beaten it and regretted it! Well, I'd like to throw in a positive take on it, because I really like what I've seen so far.

I've only played the demo an hour or so, which is already more than I've spent on any other game on the platform. Although I didn't actually finish the demo before I bought the full version. I've played that for about the same amount of time now. Maybe I've not played it long enough yet, and maybe it starts to get repetitive, but I've not yet used all the tools that are available in the shop. I am just now finding the maps and the green gems.

I'll not say any more until after I've finished it.

Unknown Soldier wrote:

My iPhone toting brethren talked me into buying Uniwar, which is multiplayer compatible with the iPhone version. It is a turn based strategy game similar to Advance Wars. Multiplayer only although it does have some sort of bot option but still takes a while for the turns to take place.

I was wrong about it being multiplayer only! I'm was just being dense and it took me a while to figure out there was a single player campaign available once you sign out of "online mode". I was playing the single player campaign on hard mode last night and got my butt stomped on the 4th level about half a dozen times until I figured it out. So it looks like there's some good challenge to the AI in hard mode, unlike the bots in multiplayer which incredibly stupid.

Unknown Soldier wrote:

Try Tower Raiders - it's a much better tower defense game than Robo Defense. The Gold version has more than paid for itself just while sitting on the toilet. Wish the guy would come out with some more bonus maps though, it's been quite a while since he updated.

Since I'm in the mood to quote myself today, here's another. Just got an update for Tower Raiders today with 2 more bonus maps, so the author hasn't abandoned the game.

Are there any good RPG's out for Android yet?

Citizen86 wrote:

Are there any good RPG's out for Android yet?

Zenonia is pretty fun so far.

I think Zenonia is out for Android. Crusade of Destiny looks promising.

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.dvid...

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.game...

Both have 4+ stars. I'm not much for rpgs (that don't come from Blizzard), though.

why do games look so bad on Andriod? Seriously it reminds me of the difference between Windows games and Linux games. Is there some proprietary app that Windows/Apple can use that open source software can't? Or is it just poor programing?

farley3k wrote:

why do games look so bad on Andriod? Seriously it reminds me of the difference between Windows games and Linux games. Is there some proprietary app that Windows/Apple can use that open source software can't? Or is it just poor programing?

I have a problem with both of your premises here.

There are some crappy looking games on Android and some very pretty ones, same as on iPhone. In the last post, Crusade of Destiny looks fairly bad and Zenonia looks very pretty. Both games are available for both iPhone and for Android, and from the screenshots I've seen they look the same on both.

My premise is based on averages. 99% of games on the iphone look better than those on Android. Of course there are some outliers.

farley3k wrote:

My premise is based on averages. 99% of games on the iphone look better than those on Android. Of course there are some outliers.

Well all the games made by professional development teams on either the iphone or android look as professional as one another. The Android market place is a bit more wild west so it is full of whatever random crap some guy just knocked together, Apple's censorship and price to enter means that there's less of that going on in the app store. Also the app store market is currently the bigger money spinner so a) the bigger software houses are there and b) there is more marketing budget available so you get to hear about the good stuff (and nobody spends good money on something that looks like crap).

That said, I haven't put a game on my Android phone in months and months that didn't look professional produced.

e2a: also there is a market size distortion going on. If there are 1000 games on the iphone and 10% look/are great that's still 100 games you'll be hearing about. If there's only say 200 games on Android and the percentage of decent stuff is the same that's only 20 games and that smaller signal will likely get lost among ALL THE GREAT IPHONE GAMES.

The android market for gaming is still in its infancy. It is only recently that larger game publishers (EA, Namco, Atari) have started producing games for Android. Generally, games that are available for both platforms seem to look pretty much the same. Some android games are going to experience issues from smaller devs due to the range of devices. If you want your game to be compatible with the most devices you'll design it for the lowest common denominator. The LCD on android devices is slower and lower resolution than the iPhone.

Take a look at EXZeus
http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.hype...

I think perhaps I am not expressing myself well. When I look at ExZeus I see graphics which scream Linux to me. Now I know Android isn't Linux but it is open source is well which is why I wondered if there is something about open source graphics processing which is different.

Actually Android is Linux... isn't it?

farley3k wrote:

I think perhaps I am not expressing myself well. When I look at ExZeus I see graphics which scream Linux to me. Now I know Android isn't Linux but it is open source is well which is why I wondered if there is something about open source graphics processing which is different.

Nope.

Citizen86 wrote:

Actually Android is Linux... isn't it?

Yep.

I do notice a big difference in font rendering going from Windows to Linux. I'm not sure if it's Windows fonts are smoothed better, or just different, but it's definitely noticeable. Other than that though, graphics I wouldn't say are different... Especially if you compared two OpenGL games.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

The LCD on some android devices is slower and lower resolution than the iPhone.

Corrected.

Citizen86 wrote:

I do notice a big difference in font rendering going from Windows to Linux. I'm not sure if it's Windows fonts are smoothed better, or just different, but it's definitely noticeable.

Well... font rendering has so many variables from the screen quality to the actual fonts to the algorithms supported by the font renderer. On my brand new linux box at work the fonts look more rounded than on my home XP machine and on my macbook everything looks very smooth and clear. But the default font rendering on XP doesn't have much anti-aliasing unlike either the mac or the linux box. Both of them support also support sub pixel aliasing. But if I get my mac to drive either my PC's monitor or my TV in the lounge fonts look way worse, quite blurry, I assume because the font rendering is heavily optimised for the Macbook's screen.

Other than that though, graphics I wouldn't say are different... Especially if you compared two OpenGL games.

Yeah, the gameloft games on either iphone or android are pretty close to identical.

farley3k wrote:

why do games look so bad on Andriod? Seriously it reminds me of the difference between Windows games and Linux games. Is there some proprietary app that Windows/Apple can use that open source software can't? Or is it just poor programing?

I think you're confusing programming with art. I think you're probably confusing a whole bunch of other things, too.

As someone that's been playing games on Linux for more than a decade now, I can tell you that there's no fundamental difference between open-source and proprietary software when it comes to graphical capabilities. I've played a bunch of Linux games over that time, from UT and Quake II through to through to modern indie games like World of Goo, Aquaria, and Osmos, and they all look just as good on Linux as they do on other platforms.

What I think you're comparing is open-source games on Linux, to commercial games on Windows. In that case, sure, there's a difference -- it's the difference between development houses with dedicated art departments, and hobbyists making something for fun with limited resources. It's fair to say that the open-source world does code much better than it does art, simply because there are a lot more coders than artists using it.

Summary: it's nothing to do with the nature of the code (open vs. closed), and everything to do with the availability of resources.

As for Android, well, most of even the crappy-looking games aren't open-source, but a lot of them are developed by small teams for fun, so the same principle applies. A game that's developed for, and runs on, both Android and iPhone is almost certainly going to look identical on both, and once Android can offer developers the same kind of revenues they're seeing on iPhone, you'll see the investment in production qualities to match.

pneuman wrote:

It's fair to say that the open-source world does code much better than it does art, simply because there are a lot more coders than artists using it.

Code is easier than art...

DanB wrote:

Code is easier than art... ;)

Tell that to artists

Citizen86 wrote:

I do notice a big difference in font rendering going from Windows to Linux. I'm not sure if it's Windows fonts are smoothed better, or just different, but it's definitely noticeable.

Part of this is actually due to software patents -- Apple has patents on certain aspects of TrueType font rendering, particularly in regard to hinting, which is usually used to aid screen legibility at lower resolutions. The open-source TrueType library, FreeType, has code that implements those patented algorithms, but it's always been disabled by default, and replaced by alternative, non-patented algorithms.

However, the relevant patents actually expired in May, and FreeType now enables that previously-patent-encumbered code by default! Happy day! I don't know how big a real-world difference this will make, but hopefully it will improve things.